Combine Innovations And You’ll Get A Robot
Written by:
Cristina Andersson
I had the fantastic opportunity to be a part of Roboinsights event in Helsingør last year. It was the debut for an event that brought together experts in robotics. Not only from the tech side but from the legal aspects, artificial intelligence, education and many other insights that together made a thrilling combination and a totally new concept in the map of global robotics events.
Why is the word combination so important, especially in the scenery of robotics?
One of the gurus of robotics Albert Yefimov from Skolkovo Moscow said once: ”A robot is a global product. If you look inside the robot there are sensors, servomotors, algorithms etc, and all could be from different parts of world”.
Robot indeed is a combinatory innovation that needs combinatory creativity in order to become a product that serves it’s purpose with precision and quality.
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.”
For the past few years I have worked with the Finnish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs to develop a program that helps to put the new robotics and artificial intelligence in use. The program is called ”The Well-being and Health Sector’s AiRo (Artificial Intelligence and Robotics) Programme”. A big part of the program is to find solutions for the elderly people to live at home as long as possible. The demographics in Finland do not give hope that there would be sufficiently of human hands in the future to take care of all of the support needing people living in the country. We need the robots to help us.
And robots are indeed helping create better life quality already. For example the Evondos drug dispensing robot takes care that the right amount of medicine is taken at exactly the right time. The robot saves costs of the service providers and helps the homecare personnel to better make optimized plans for the day.
Evondos has succeeded well. The company was awarded with the ”best growth” award in Western Finland in May.
Evondos robot is a great example of combinatory innovation. Based on some ideas of a cash-machine, putting intelligence and lots of high tech and a nice voice inside, all in a well-designed cover, they have really created an impact product that brings about safety and wellbeing to the user.
But the combinatory thinking does not end there, in tech and service design. To succeed the company needs to know also about procurement processes, regulations, home environments, nurses needs and attitudes – just to mention a few.
”The great driver of scientific and technological innovation was the increase in our ability to reach out and exchance ideas with other people, and to borrow other people’s hunches and combine them with our hunches and turn them into something new”
Creating new innovations and bettering the existing ones demands wide range of thinking. It challenges you to step out of your field of expertise and visit domains that seem to be distant or even weird. Only then you can bring new thick value to this world and make great business. Only then you can develop a robot that serves and meets also people’s ethical and social needs.
In Roboinsights 2019 the ideas will once again combine into creative new paths where new ideas start to flourish! So, I strongly recommend you to visit, I will be there too.
Cristina Andersson is a non-fiction author and an educationalist. She is also an Entrepreneur and a Boardmember. After publishing ”BohoBusiness – Victory of Man Over Machine” (Talentum 2012) she has become an expert in artificial intelligence and robotics. Cristina coordinates The Finnish National AiRo Program for Health and WellBeing that aims to create a Quantum Leap in Healthcare in Finland.
Lately Cristina also started studies in Quantum Computing which, she believes, will revolutionise the way we solve the most challenging problems of the universe and human kind. Quantum Computing will also offer new opportunities for businesses to thrive in fantastic ways.
